Allegheny county had four experienced organizers, Philadelphia four, Montgomery three, Bucks two, Chester, Washington, Luzerne and McKean each one. Eighteen other organizers worked under the supervision of Miss Patterson.[154] They visited every one of the 67 counties during the year, formed new organizations, stimulated those already established, conducted booths at county fairs, addressed women's clubs, teachers' institutes, Chautauquas, picnics, farmers' institutes, men's organizations, political, church, college and factory meetings. During the last three months of the campaign they conducted county tours and held open air meetings daily. They formed central organizations in 64 counties under competent chairmen. Cameron and Pike were the only counties where there were no societies but in Cameron there were active workers. In the other eleven counties central organizations were not formed but legislative districts and boroughs were organized, each with a capable chairman.[155]
To Miss Clarissa A. Moffitt, its secretary, belongs much credit for the able management of the Speakers' Bureau. During the campaign year 56 counties were supplied, involving the services of 64 speakers; 14 were men, 33 were Pennsylvanians, 14 contributed services and expenses and 27 asked expenses only. The bureau made a study of the characteristics of each county in industry, agriculture, character of population and politics. Speakers were then offered who would be acceptable to the community as well as to the particular meeting. Dr. Anna Howard Shaw, national president, gave 28 lectures and from every county reports came that hundreds of converts were made.
The manager of the publicity department, Charles T. Heaslip, was an expert not only in the art of journalism but also in the art of publicity. This department ultimately required the full time of three special writers. Semi-monthly a two column plate service was sent to 260 papers from February and from October 1 it was weekly, the list of papers having grown to 346. Allegheny county, in which Pittsburgh is located, conducted the most efficient county campaign. Its headquarters practically duplicated the State headquarters at Harrisburg with secretaries and organizers and it was the only one which employed its own publicity agent. A weekly news bulletin was issued to 500 papers and the regular service was supplemented by special stories. Much work was done in advance of meetings. From July to November a weekly cartoon service was undertaken, a new feature in suffrage campaign work. According to the newspaper men it comprised the best cartoons ever used in any campaign in the State and the money spent for them brought greater returns than that for any other feature. The cartoonists were C. Batchelor, Charles H. Winner and Walter A. Sinclair.
In special features the publicity department avoided sensationalism. Suffrage Flower Gardens, Good Roads Day, the Justice Bell and Supplication Day comprised practically the entire list. Attractive yellow boxes containing seeds for the old-fashioned yellow flowers were offered for sale by the State association and the flower gardens furnished a picturesque form of propaganda and long continued publicity. In Pennsylvania a day in the spring is set aside by the department of highways when all residents along country roads are asked to contribute their services for their improvement. The local suffrage organizations provided coffee and sandwiches for the laborers and got in their propaganda. On Supplication Day, the last Sunday before election, ministers were asked to preach suffrage sermons. Mrs. Ruschenberger's Bell was the best and main publicity feature and undeniably secured many thousands of votes. It visited all the counties, traveling 3,935 miles on a special truck. Hundreds of appeals by as many speakers were made from this as a stand and it was received in the rural communities with almost as much reverence and ceremony as would have been accorded the original bell. The collections and the receipts from the sale of novelties moulded in the likeness of the bell helped materially to defray the heavy expense of operating the truck, paying the speakers' expenses and providing literature.
Space for the display of advertising cards was purchased in 5,748 street cars for August, September and October. Special suffrage editions of newspapers in all parts of the State, copy and cuts for which were prepared by the State Publicity Department, contributed considerably to propaganda and finance. Throughout the State the general lines of activity were the same—meetings of all kinds, parades, hearings before organizations to secure endorsements, booths at county fairs, exhibitions, canvassing, circularization and auto tours. The degree of success in each locality depended upon the kind and amount of work. Millions of fliers, leaflets and booklets original to Pennsylvania were issued in English, Italian, German, Polish and Hebrew and no effort or expense was spared to secure converts through the written word. During the last month of the campaign the county organizations circularized their voters twice—once with speeches of Representatives Mondell of Wyoming and Keating of Colorado in Congress and once with a personal letter written to the voter and signed by the county chairman or a suffragist in his own community. Four days before election 330,000 of these letters went to the voters.
Although a bill for woman watchers at the polls failed to pass the Legislature and the suffragists were thus denied the protection which every political party is permitted, yet in many counties the assistance of the regularly appointed watchers was secured. The Washington party and Socialist watchers were universally helpful and in many cases the Democratic and Republican watchers gave assistance. The suffrage organizations were urged to place women workers at every polling precinct. Many men favorable to suffrage advised against this plan but the result of the election showed that nothing won as many votes at the last minute as the appeal of the women at the polls. Of the 33 counties which were carried 21 had women working at the polls; of the 36 which lost only six had women there. Of the 33 counties 17 had headquarters.
Eight of the 33 counties which gave a majority are chiefly industrial; eight are equally industrial and rural and seventeen are chiefly rural. Luzerne, Lackawanna and Westmoreland are the third, fourth and fifth counties in point of population and they won by majorities of 3,139, 2,654 and 1,140. In all of them the labor vote is heavy, as mining is the chief industry. Allegheny was the first county of its size to be carried in the history of suffrage. Fayette county, the home of Republican State Chairman Crow, who never wavered in his opposition, was carried by 1,400. Every ward in Uniontown, the county seat and his home, gave a majority for the amendment. Mrs. Robert E. Umbel was county chairman. The eight Dutch counties lost by majorities ranging from 2,000 to 7,000. Rockbound conservatism had much to do with this result. Schuylkill county, where an adverse vote from 10,000 to 15,000 was predicted, lost by only 1,000. Miss Helen Beddall, the chairman, conducted a persistent campaign of education for two years.
Philadelphia had the most difficult problem to face with its large vote and political corruption. Its difficulties were increased by the duplication of suffrage organizations working independently. An added complication was the prejudice created by the efforts of the "militant" suffrage organization, then called the Congressional Union, to organize, this being the only center in the State in which they had secured a foothold. The large women's clubs of Philadelphia took no part in the constructive work of the campaign. Wilmer Atkinson of this city, editor and owner of the Farm Journal, was president of the Men's League for Woman Suffrage and gave unstintingly of his strength and means to secure victory. The vote in Philadelphia was 122,519 noes, 77,240 ayes; adverse majority, 45,279. The total vote was 826,382; in favor, 385,348; opposed, 441,034; lost by 55,686 votes, only 10,407 more than the majority in Philadelphia. The amendment received nearly 47 per cent. of the total vote cast on it.
Prior to election day all the political parties in the State had endorsed woman suffrage per se, except the Republican and that party had declared in favor of a referendum to the voters. The great weakness of the campaign was lack of money. The total State fund was $78,698, of which Allegheny county contributed 50 per cent. Many of the counties spent considerable sums in addition, Allegheny county's special "budget" being $25,000. If the association had had an additional $25,000 the lacking 3 per cent. of the voters could have been secured and the campaign would have ended in a victory.